Building Ministry Through Effective Communications

Building Ministry Through Effective Communications

Lowell Duncan and Ross Badgett

Analytics Are…

• Organically-developed numbers tracking user activity

• A whole range of measures, from the ages of users to the load times of pages

• Used to tell us how users are interacting with our site

• A great way to evaluate our successes and shortcomings

40% of users won’t wait more than 3 seconds for a page to load

90% of users can see this without scrollingLess than 50% of users will scroll on landing pages

How Many People Use Our Website?

• We’re seeing steady year-over-year growth: – 71,028 sessions in 2011– 74,287 sessions in 2012– 75,889 sessions in 2013

Who Uses Our Site?

Who Uses Our Site?

Who Uses Our Site?

38% mobile devices

How Are They Getting to Our Site?

How Are They Getting to Our Site?

Facebook

Email

Episcopal Church

Twitter

Popular Content

Most Popular….

• Article?

• Event?

• Day on our site?– Christmas Eve– Day of the week? Friday

Other Things To Note:

• 39% of visits began with a page other than the homepage

• More than 12% of all first interactions are with the Calendar or an Event

• Best average time spent on a page?1. Panis Angelicus Latin Pronunciation Guide2. Stephen Ministry

Images Are King

Images Are King

• Average attention span of an internet user in 2013 was 8 seconds– Average attention span of a goldfish? 9 seconds

Our Favorite Websites

Our Favorite Websites

Our Favorite Websites

Our Favorite Websites

Current Email Trends

Best Days of the Week for Email

Accounts, Lists, and Subscribers

• Main Saint Michael account - 3,417 email addresses on 4 lists

• Kevin’s account - 6,520 email addresses on 3 lists

• Pastoral Care - 454 email addresses on 2 lists• CFM - 1,498 email addresses on 12 lists• Youth Ministry - 2,123 email addresses on 38

lists• Total = 14,012 email addresses on 59 lists

Understanding Email Lists

• Each list is managed separately• If an email address is in 2 lists, it counts twice• Active parishioners may be subscribed to as

many as 10 different lists• We don’t have close to 14,000 unique

subscribers

But Wait! There’s More…

• Several other church-related correspondences happen with regularity:– One-time emails from big lists– Ministry group correspondence– Committee correspondence– One-on-one correspondence between staff/clergy

and lay people

Effects of Oversaturation

BRAND

FATIGUE

LESS ENGAGEMENT

POOR REFLECTION ON

THE WHOLE CHURCH

Our Favorite Email Campaigns

Our Favorite Email Campaigns

Social Media Trends

• Social media remains the largest-growing communication segment

• Business social media budgets will double in the next 5 years

• Facebook has 1.19 billion monthly active users– Twitter has 232 million and is the fastest-growing social

media platform (total users > 550 million)• Facebook is 64% mobile, Twitter 60%• Facebook and Twitter are 2 of the “Big Three”

social media platforms used by marketers– Google+ is the 3rd

Our Facebook Page

• Has more than 820 likes• Every single like is organic• Is multimedia-driven:– Photos– Video– Live Streams

• Is populated with your ministry’s content

Our Twitter Profile…

• Has 321 followers• Average = 60 posts/month• Can post directly from our website CMS • Has the most diverse following of any of our

social media• Is populated with your ministry’s content

Twitter allows us to reach important people (and vice-versa)…

Create Inter-Organizational Dialogue…

And Let Others Advertise For Us

Who’s At Saint Michael on Sundays?

• Average Sunday worship attendance in 2013 was 1,162 people across all services

• Approx. 40-60 people only show up for Sunday School

• Posters, screens, etc. can be seen by as many as 1,200 people on an average Sunday – More than 62,000 sets of eyes per year– Not including a single other day of the week or

event